Ok, so I have a small thing that I need to get off my chest. Apparently I am the only one amongst the group of people I hang out with that is bothered by, or has even noticed this. My own girlfriend has told me I am thinking way too much about this, that this doesn’t matter. But dammit this really bugs me and I feel like it’s important enough to talk about. This is one of those things that has been nagging at me for a really long time now and I just want to rant about it here. So if you’re on board for that then let’s go.

All right, so a few days ago I got to see the live action adaptation of Beauty and the Beast. I quite enjoyed it. I thought it was a faithful adaptation of the original with just enough new things brought in to make it feel fresh. The cast was very good; they all did their jobs very well. If you enjoyed the original animated version you should like this I have nothing to complain about in that regard. Instead what I want to bring up is something that has bothered me for a long time. Something that has bothered me since the animated film came out. This has been something that no one has given a suitable answer for. This is such a nitpicky thing that I wouldn’t be surprised if no one noticed or even cared, but I need answers.

WHY THE HELL DOES NO ONE CALL THE BEAST BY HIS ACTUAL NAME?

Seriously, not once in either movie is the character referred to by his given name. Since the movie has been released it’s been said that the Beast’s real name was Prince Adam. The problem is that if the internet hadn’t told me that I wouldn’t have known. I’ve seen both the original animated film and the new live action film very recently and at no point does anyone in the film call him by his name Adam. WHY?! I’m not saying this is a flaw in the filmmaking process, just that it baffles me that no one addresses this guy by name. How, of the course of the entire movie does no one mention the name, or even ask about it.​Even this guy’s servants call him beast or just don’t refer to his name at all. Think about it, people like Cogsworth, Lumiere, Mrs. Potts, and the rest of the staff don’t call him Adam, and these are people that have been with him for years at the minimum. It’s even mentioned that they practically raised him and that they all have some form of love for the prince. So I just find it weird that no one decides to mention his name or call him by it. Even during the great Ballroom scene, with Mrs. Potts singing for the dancing couple she refers to him as Beast. This should be one of the best nights of this guy’s life, one of his first truly happy moments in a long time. And here is this tea pot calling him a beast. This guy clearly has issues about his appearance over the course of the movie and no one takes steps to prevent that. They just seem to be poking him about it.

Even Belle doesn’t ask what his name is. Over the course of the film as her feelings for Adam/Beast are changing she doesn’t think it’s important to ask. Even after the beast transformers back into a human she doesn’t ask. She witnesses the love of her life die, then get wrapped up in magic, come back to life, and then turn back into a human, the first thing she calls him is “Beast.” At this point I just wanted the guy to look at Belle and say “My name is Adam, but thanks for asking.” Am I the only one that seems think that Belle is being a little rude? Like, she’s been living in his castle for who knows how long, they are clearly starting to get along, and at no point does she go “So hey, you got a name?” She loves the guy and she doesn’t know his goddam name. And nowhere is there a suitable explanation why.​Yes, the argument can be made that the beast is losing his humanity the longer he stays as a beast, and as a result his name has lost meaning to him. As a result the staff stops bringing it up. And that’s fine, so long as it is established firmly that is the case. All it would take to make me happy on this regard would be if Belle asks for his name and Beast responds with, “it doesn’t matter”, or “I’m not that person now.” That’s it, that’s all it would take for me to be satisfied. Again, I might be the only one this bothers. But Dammit I just need something to put that away. Because as far as I can see, it’s just a lot of people being rude to this poor guy.

Ok, so I’m going to sidetrack back into the wacky world of wrestling for a moment. Sorry this thing is going to be a bit video heavy, but if you’re interested they are worth checking out. Also a side note, the links in here will be bracketed for your ease. By this point in time almost everyone who is aware of professional wrestling is also aware that it is scripted and predetermined. That’s not to say fake however. While the matches themselves and the storylines surrounding them are planned out in advance that doesn’t stop the actual performers from going out in front of an audience of thousands and actually performing. Yes, the wrestlers know who win before the match starts, but they will still have to go out there and have the match. They still have to go out there and entertain the masses. They have to go out there and convince a room full of people that what they are seeing is real. These performers have to make a room full of people and the world at large believe in and react to the pure madness that they are seeing

That is why I love wrestling, because by all accounts it’s complete madness. It’s absolutely insane. And it works! Under no normal circumstances should the events of wrestling ever be believable, no one should buy into it. Look at it, how would this make sense? You have men strolling down to the ring in what amounts to little more than a speedo and kneepads while some rock song plays over the loudspeakers. And the audience goes absolutely nuts for it. It is the simple act of a guy walking down a ramp while music plays that can make a room full of people cheer him incessantly, or boo him mercilessly. Can anyone else see what’s crazy about that? That is part of the reason why I love wrestling. The presence of a single person can change the entire atmosphere of a room. Perhaps one of my favorite examples is the debut of (Enzo and Cass). These two look and behave ridiculous, and yet the crowd absolutely love them. In what world should something like this happen? Listen to the reactions of the crowd, really listen. They chant along with every word. That’s what I love, the fact that outlandish characters such as these two can get so much love from the audience for a gimmick that would have them ignored in the real world. That is awesome to me.

There is also the art of the promo, where one of the superstars addresses the crowd. This can draw cheers or boos in equal measure and can set a person up for stardom. That is another thing that baffles me about wrestling; that a person can get a room full of people to cheer or boo them with just a few words. One of the best promos from recent memory is the “Pipe bomb” that a man named (CM Punk dropped). This is basically everything you need to know about the promo as we see practically every reaction from the crowd possible. WE see the audience cheer him, and then a few minutes later they are booing him. That a man can control an audience to such an extent in the insane world of wrestling is incredible. Think about it for a minute, everyone and their dog know wrestling is staged, they know this isn’t real. But these people are still able to sway their emotions so easily. Am I the only one who sees how nuts this is and how incredible pro wrestling is as a result?

Where else am I going to be able to see an undead wizard/mortician/zombie/wrestler use his force lightning to destroy a swamp-man messiah dead sister’s rocking chair? (That happened). That actually happened. It was a thing that WWE showed on live T.V. That was a thing that a group of writers agreed was a good thing to do. Wrestling is stupid. And I love it for that very reason. I love it for the fact that I can see something as batshit crazy as that make it onto live T.V in a manner that makes it look 100% serious. There have been so many ludicrous things happen over the course of pro wrestling that it’s hard to keep track of.

Another aspect that I love is the drama that is able to unfold. Take a look at this (video). Here we see lovable underdog Daniel Bryan finally stand up to his tormentors, and the crowd lose their fucking minds. Seriously just look at how the audience reacts, that shit is insane. Watch how he conducts the crowd. One man, just by standing up for himself is able to control a crowd to this extent. How does anyone not get goosebumps from that shit? This is one of the best examples of the ability of pro wrestling and the wrestlers themselves to really impact an audience. Seriously, just look at that, those people have lost their collective minds because the characters and story are so goddam compelling. While we’re at it, let’s look at one of the Undertakers entrances. You remember that wizard/mortician/zombie guy? (This) is how he typically makes his way to the ring. I don’t care what anyone says, that shit is fucking theatre. Everything about this is outlandish, but listen to the reaction of the crowd when they hear the gong go off. Listen to how excited they are. That amazes me. This spectacle we have all just witnessed brings so much joy to so many people. That is why I am a wrestling fan.​The fact that pro wrestling appeals to so many people from so many age groups is astounding. People from every generation love it. Even with how ludicrous the shows can get people still flock to watch it. Grown-ups can still have very real and visceral reactions to what they see in the ring, and that is incredible. Watch the first minute or two of this video (here). Anything that can make an adult man react like this cannot be a bad thing.

All right, if you’re reading this I can assume one of two things: you either enjoyed what I wrote last time or you just want to see how much of a dumpster fire this will become. Either way, I’m happy you’re here. So let’s crack on.

Now, if you read what I wrote last time you’ll know that I’m attempting to address the Nuckelavee Grimm and how I feel like it was misused in RWBY Volume 4. If you’re jumping on now, a quick recap. I feel like the Nuckelavee Grimm was so goddam cool and had such a good build up that it was a disappointment to see it die in less than 10 minutes. So, in my insanity I decided to write about how I would do it.

Basically all the lead up will remain the same, that stuff was great. What I’m changing is everything that comes after the reveal of the Nuckelavee. The initial part of the fight between the Nuckelavee and Team RNJR plays out the same; RNJR looks good, the Grimm looks like it is defeated, Ren is still in a rage because that works well. However, the Nuckelavee shakes off the attacks of RNJR and proceeds to beat them down quite badly, forcing RNJR to flee. Also, just because I want it to because I think it would be cool, the Nuckelavee talks. This all serves to make the Nuckelavee a legitimate and terrifying threat, and plays up the idea that Grimm can be intelligent.

Ok, we’re all caught up so let’s really dive in to how I would want to see this insanity end. Basically RNJR is forced to flee from the battle; they are still dragging the injured Qrowe behind them. All members are battered and injured from the fight. Morale is low all around. All they can do right now is try and put as much distance between them and the Nuckelavee as possible. There should be little to no dialogue between the characters as they are just exhausted and downtrodden. All the while it is seen that Ren is still angry at not only having encountered the Nuckelavee, but having to flee. The other characters recognize this, but can do little to comfort him right now. All they can think about is fleeing. After some time, RNJR decides that they have no choice but to stop for the night, try and rest and regain their strength. They begin the process of making camp and are just about to settle down when suddenly the roar of the Nuckelavee is heard in the distance. The characters spring to their feet to try and find the source. Because I feel it’ll look dramatic and be cool as hell, RNJR sees the Nuckelavee standing on a hill in the distance. It is clearly watching them, but making no move to approach. RNJR has to leave immediately. There will be no rest for them tonight.

We pick this up again the next day. The members of Team RNJR are clearly even more exhausted. They have been moving all night with no rest and little food, they are clearly weakening. Again, they feel like they have put distance between the Grimm and themselves so they decide to stop and try to rest. But guess what? The Nuckelavee’s roar is heard again. It’s following them. Again they flee. Now, I’d want this trend to continue for a while, not too long, but just long enough to really make the Nuckelavee even scarier than before.

My goal here is to make the Nuckelavee seem highly intelligent. To me, this thing needs to appear to have a cruel, malicious intellect. By this point it should be obvious that the Grimm is toying with RNJR. It is clearly following them but making no move to attack. It is announcing its presence to the characters, forcing them to flee again, further tiring them out. The characters start to catch on to this. They know it’s following them, but they also know that they can’t stop. If they do, they know the Nuckelavee will attack them, and most likely kill them this time. They are constantly kept on the move. This hopefully completes my goal of making the Nuckelavee the clear threat that this volume of RWBY needs and truly sets it apart from the other creatures of Grimm. Hopefully now it is properly scary, as I feel it should be.

After a few days of pursuit, it is clear the strain is really getting to the characters. They simply can’t go on like this for much longer. They are getting shorter with each other, leading to a few brief conflicts. All throughout Ren is increasingly frustrated by what’s happening. And now just because I’m an asshole apparently, we come to my finale to this whole thing. The team continues to struggle on when Ren stops walking. He has finally realized that they can’t go on like this. The Nuckelavee has to be confronted. Now naturally the rest of the team disagree, they got pretty handily beaten last time and surely won’t stand a chance now. This is where Ren drops the bomb. They don’t all have to fight, just one of them, just one person, lasting long enough for the rest of the team to get away. To really put some distance between them and their pursuer. Of course Ren states that he will be the one to stay, The Nuckelavee killed his parents and destroyed his village, it has to be him. Predictably Nora loses her shit, saying that there is no way she’d let him do that. Ruby also chimes in saying they just have to keep moving.

Juane is the only one who keeps quiet. After some debate between the other three characters, Juane quietly agrees with Ren. Someone has to stay. It’s either one person stays, or they all die. Clearly Juane doesn’t like the idea, he hates it. But he also realizes that it is the only way right now for any of them to make it out alive. Ruby slowly starts to accept this, as both her and Juane were team leaders they know what Ren is saying makes sense. Nora by this point is hysterical, she simply won’t leave Ren. At this point Ren hugs Nora, putting every bit of emotion he has into the hug, this stuns Nora into silence for a moment. Ren pulls back, smiles at Nora, then bops her on the nose and says “boop.” (this of course being Nora’s way of saying “I love you” to Ren) Nora is totally speechless. Ren then does some aura shenanigans and renders Nora unconscious. Again, because I’m an asshole who apparently loves suffering. He then hands her off to Ruby and Juane and tells them to make their escape, more difficult now that they have two unconscious people, but possible. Juane can say that Nora will possibly hate Ren when she wakes up, Ren replies that she can do so while she is alive. Ren turns to wait for the Nuckelavee.

Sorry team. Ren isn’t making it out of this one alive. He puts up a great fight and stalls the Nuckelavee, hell; I’ll even say he kills it using more aura shenanigans (thus avenging his parents and village) but he dies in the process. I know the Nuckelavee beat all of RNJR earlier, but I’m going to say that it also has an ego and doesn’t see a lone human as much of a threat. Naturally as the fight goes on it takes things more seriously. Ren will still use his father’s dagger to kill the Nuckelavee, but do so by concentrating his aura through the blade, killing the Nuckelavee from the inside out. I think that would be cool anyway.​And that’s how I would do it. The Nuckelavee looks cool and menacing as hell. RNJR is put through hell. Nora and the rest of RNJR can have some cool development and storylines in the next volume. Plus, I think, you would have a truly unique creature of Grimm. And I don’t think that’s a bad thing.

Ok, so by now anyone who is reading this has seen the finale to RWBYvolume 4. This was an interesting volume to say the least. It did a lot of good things for the series, but it’s shortcomings can’t be ignored. So I’m going to try and address one such shortcoming here, and discuss how I would have liked it to be. I’m doing this because I’m allowed to do that because I’m a sarcastic jerk who thinks way too highly of his own opinion. So I’m going to discuss a few spoilers, so for those who haven’t seen the finale can stop here. If not I can either assume you don’t care for the series (in which case, why are you here?), or you don’t care about spoilers. So let that be a warning for the rest of you.​Mild Spoilers Ahead.

All right, so pretty much anyone who has seen this volume of RWBY will agree that it’s got some pacing issues. Team RNJR spends the majority of their time walking. Weiss is trapped in her house by her father, Blake is reconnecting with her family, and Yang is dealing with her PTSD. While these plotlines make up great character moments and can do a good job of showing character growth, it can’t be denied that they serve to bog the overall plot of the series down a bit.

Now, while the pacing issues are certainly one of, if not the most, noticeable issue in this volume, it is not the one that I will be focusing on. So right away I’m going to say that I think that the storylines for Weiss, Blake and Yang in this volume to be by-and-large good, so I won’t be touching those ones much, if at all. Instead I would like to focus on the Team RNJR side of the story; or more specifically, the events surrounding the Nuckelavee Grimm.

Oh, the Nuckelavee, what a glorious thing you were. Look at that thing, it looks terrifying. This was the first creature of Grimm in the entire series that genuinely scared me. While I know that in the world that the series has created, in terms of the story, these creatures are meant to be scary. To the people that inhabit the world, they are terrifying. But as an audience member it’s hard to take them seriously as a threat when you have 17 years olds tearing through large swarms of them. Yes I know they are super powered teenager, but still, the threat is diminished. While they certainly have cool designs, they don’t instil any great fear when I see them on screen. So imagine my surprise and excitement when the Nuckelavee steps onto the scene and genuinely makes me feel fear. The thing looked so imposing the majority of the fan base was convinced at least one of the main characters was going to die. That’s how good this thing looked.

One of the things that really helped sell the fear of this thing for me was the fact that the writers took their time in building up to the reveal. With only sparing hints throughout the season, like footprints in destroyed villages, and an admittedly terrifying silhouetted appearance, the Nuckelavee was being built up properly to be truly scary. However, the most effective part of the build is when Ren and Nora stumble across its cave. Here, in this bloodstained cave, it is shown that this thing takes trophies. Weapons and village flags litter the ground, implying that this thing is smart and malicious enough to take the trophies, which alone would have scarred the pants off me. Couple all of that with one of the most unnerving sounds the beast could have possibly made and you have a damn effective build to the reveal. Listen to it here.

The build was so good that I couldn’t help but be disappointed when the Nuckelavee was defeated in relatively short order. It was built up and presented so well that when it was defeated in about 8 minutes it felt like a massive let down. So that’s what I want address here. I want to address how I would have liked to see the Nuckelavee events go down.

So just going to start this off by clarifying that I`m not saying my ideas are better. Just that they are what I was hoping for and what I would have wanted to see. With that, let`s get going.

One thing I would also like to attempt to do is try and shorten up a few things in this volume to help quicken the pacing and to help set-up what I’d want to do later. This is quite frankly because what I want to do with the Nuckelavee would take way too long to try and cram into the last little bit of volume 4, so for now I will go up to where I think volume 4 should end, and then at some point on the future (next week) detail my plan for what I’d like to see for RNJR in volume 5. To help out the pacing the majority of episode 8 is being moved to the World of Remnant side videos and a much shorter conversation put in its place. This removes a lot of world building (the tale of two brothers) that while interesting isn’t essential to the plot of the volume, and allows for a conversation about what is happening in the world today, like whom and what the overarching villains are and what they are doing. We’re also going to have to try and cut down on other plot elements from the other characters stories that don’t really move their characters forward; nothing super serious, just a trimming of some scenes. This should move the volume along faster and give me more time for the Nuckelavee.

Ok, so first things first, the build up to the Nuckelavee will remain basically the same, because goddam that shit was great at building up suspense and fear, which we will need later. Second thing, The Nuckelavee wins the fight with team RNJR; and quite convincingly. That is important to this. I’m not saying that RNJR doesn’t put up a fight; each member will have their own moment to shine in this fight. In fact, the early part of the fight can play out almost exactly like it did in the series proper. We can keep Ren going into a rage at the sight of the Grimm that killed his parents, because that was a good character moment. It looks like things are going well for our heroes, it looks like they may vanquish the Nuckelavee, but once the dust settles the beast will remain largely unharmed, it almost seems to laugh off RNJR’s efforts, like it’s saying “that was neat, my turn now.” This will serve to make the Nuckelavee more intimidating and a far greater threat. This is when things start to go poorly for our heroes. The Nuckelavee starts to beat them down, and quite badly. However, one thing that stands out in this fight will be that the Grimm is fighting smarter than any other beast they have faced previously. It is far more intelligent than anything they’ve seen before. This plays into the idea of a sinister intelligence with the trophy collecting. It had been hinted at earlier in the series that a Grimm could get smarter the longer it lives, so I want to explore that a bit.

For me, the point of the beat down of team RNJR is to establish a legitimate threat to the group in the form of the Nuckelavee, as well as establishing consequences to the characters actions. They leave to walk across a continent, trying to find a hostile organisation, with little to no information, or really a plan. Of course things will go terribly for them at some point. It shows that they were unprepared for the truly terrifying things in the world, that there are things in the world that are quite frankly stronger than they are. This will reinforce the idea that Grimm could actually pose a danger to these people as well as give the team a nemesis for the immediate future.

During the fight the members of team RNJR will realize they are simply outmatched. They can’t win this fight, and if they stay they will likely die. They are forced to retreat in a broken and battered state. And just for me, to play up the idea that the Nuckelavee is intelligent and just overall bad news, let’s have it talk. It doesn’t have to say much, but I think it would be a frightening thing to have a Grimm talk to these people. Just have it say something like “Run” in a gross, halting, raspy voice and I think you have something special. I’d want it made clear that the Nuckelavee is very dangerous and that all parties involved know that. RNJR has to run, and the Nuckelavee seems to give them a head start. I want the Nuckelavee to pursue the team. This will lead to my next little bit for this plotline.​Hopefully this made sense to anyone reading this. Again, I’m not saying this is how Roosterteeth should have made the season or that my ideas are better. Just that something like this is what I would have liked to see. I will finish off my take on the Nuckelavee in short order.

All right, I’m going to level with you folks. I’ve been on a bit of a Disney Bender of late. Just one of those things where an idea pops into my head, and all I can think is, “I need to do that. Right now.” So after a few days of binging on all those classic Disney films and the nostalgia bomb that was subsequently dropped on me I started to wonder what exactly it was that I loved about these films. There are many reasons I assure you, but for now I am going to focus on one aspect in particular.

The Villains.

I know I’m super late to this party, but dammit I want to talk about these things. By now I’m sure that any of you who are remotely interested in Disney know that they have many iconic and beloved villains. Some of these are more known than the protagonists of the films. These characters just ooze charisma or have a certain “it” factor that make them truly unforgettable. As I was going through these movies I realized that what I was really waiting for was for the villains to make their debut. Goddam I just really like these characters. And do you know what truly makes a Disney villain great? A catchy song detailing their nefarious schemes and motivations, as you do. Seriously, any Disney villain worth mentioning has a song and dance number that sticks with almost more than anything the hero does. Personally I find that the villains have the best songs of the entire movie; old news, I know.

For the sake of simplicity I’m keeping this to the animated Disney movies, the ones that may fall under the “classic” title. Now it was a bit of a struggle to narrow my choices down to just five, but I’m pretty sure most people would agree, these songs are just too iconic to leave out. With that, years after the fact, I humbly present my list of my top 5 Disney villain songs.​5. Friends on the Other Side: Princess and the Frog:

I’m starting this list off with one of the more recent examples of great villainy in song form. What a goddam trip this song was. This spooky, voodoo-inflected song really showcases Dr. Facilier’s character and his motives, as any good villain song does. What really helps this song out is Keith David absolutely killing it with the vocals. I believe that anything Keith David touches turns to gold, with him singing how could anything go wrong? He brings just enough charm while still being absolutely sinister that you just can’t help but be enthralled. The lyrics also help with the many not-so–subtle references to the coming plot. They convey the pure fun of this song while also containing the insidious undertone of Dr. Facilier. The visuals here are also tippy as hell. With all kinds of voodoo inspired imagery this song is big, broad, and scary, what with all the little voodoo dolls and such running around. This was also a very colorful ride, seriously just look at the last act of the song; it’s a riot of color. And as a colorblind person I think that’s saying something. Friends on the Other Side is so good that it elevates Dr. Facilier to the level of classic Disney villain.​Check it out here.​4. Gaston: Beauty and the Beast:

How could this song not be on this list? This may be one of the most beloved Disney songs, period. This is a song all about how awesome Gaston is. It’s all about ego and how the town people practically worship the man. Can you really blame them? Look at the guy, he’s awesome. The song has that all important catchiness to it that sets the great songs apart from the rest. This entire song glorifies the deplorable Gaston, but does so in such a way that you can’t help but get on board. It takes a few listens for the lyrics to really sink in, but as you listen it becomes apparent that Gaston is a terrible person despite how upbeat and catchy the tune is. I also find it kind of funny that instead of wondering where Belle may have gone off to he just sulks and drinks, like he`s not even remotely curious about it. Even when Belle`s father comes in saying she`s been kidnapped by a beast Gaston basically says “oh, neat.” And then immediately plots to have the father declared insane. What a guy, that Gaston. Also “every last inch of me is covered in hair.” Swoon.

Everyone who has seen The Little Mermaid at some point or another has tried erupting from a pool to shake out their hair like Ariel, I know I did. Don’t lie you did it too. This may in fact be the first Disney villain song I ever encountered, and it’s stuck with me. It’s chock full of all the messages that should be imparted to young children, like if you want to find love you need to change everything about yourself. It would be troubling if it wasn’t so blatantly evil. I also think this would be a lot more persuasive if it didn’t come from a squid lady who was banished for being evil and has a weirdly specific demand for payment. What I like about this song is that it starts off so slow and peaceful, as Ursula has to tempt Ariel first, it then ramps up in craziness both in tone and imagery until it reaches a crescendo of pure crazy. It’s great. Also Ursula’s movements throughout just add to the creepy factor.

Remember that time when over the course of one musical number Scar turned a group of hyenas in to the fucking Third Reich? Me too. Boy was that sure something. It wasn’t really something that I noticed until I was much older and just a bit wiser. When I was young it was just a group of hyenas marching to a song, nothing wrong there. And then I grew up. Oh boy, what a difference time makes. Instead of being a catchy little number it was all of a sudden an army of hyenas goose-stepping to a chilling murder plot. All that aside, how good was this song? Be Prepared is an enjoyably menacing song. This number tops many peoples list for not only best villain song, but best Disney song in general. The visuals start out rather tame but only get creepier and more malevolent as the song progresses, all culminating in that Third Reich inspired sequence near the end. And to top it all off there’s Jeremy Irons lending his voice to the song. I’m not sure if he was trying to sing the song or just delightfully speak his way through it, either way it sure sounds good.

Seriously, where the hell did this come from? In what might be Disney’s ballsiest song to date we see some pretty weird, and quite frankly, scary shit happen. This song took a lot of chances as it explored the mind frame of potentially the greatest Disney villain ever, Judge Claude Frollo. This song is so interesting because Frollo isn’t singing about ho weevil he is or how he wants power, it’s about his ethical dilemma of his faith and his desire for the gypsey Esmerelda. It also follows Frollo as he goes increasingly fucking nuts because of this. Seriously, what the hell happened here? It’s scary because this guy either wants to have Esmerelda for himself, or to fix his moral problem, burn her at the stake. You know, the rational solution. For a kids film it has all the things you wouldn’t expect to see, half naked women, sexual cravings, religious taboos, you know all those family friendly things. And holy shit how about the visuals here? The crazy hellish fire images alone would be enough to scare anybody, and the half-naked woman in the fire sure was a thing. But what really stands out is the robed figures that pop up out of nowhere in Frollo’s rising insanity. This is where shit really kicks off, here Frollo continues to state that everything he is going through isn’t his fault, that it’s the fault of someone else. All the while the robed figures chant “mea culpa” which literally means “my fault.” Just…wow. What a thing this song turned out to be, and that’s only scratching the surface. But that is also why this is the number one Disney Villain song.

Well…shit. I’m well and truly screwed now. Damn you. Damn you Zelda. Why do you have to do this to me now? Anyone who has read my previous articles about how many things I have to play or read will know that I have a lot of shit to do. Like, a lot. I know, I know; first world problems. But dammit leave me be. Now, for those who may not know it yet, I am a huge fan of the Legend of Zelda franchise. Like, just a massive fan. Anytime something remotely related to Zelda pops up I pay attention. I have been a massive mark for this franchise for many years, and I imagine I will be for many more to come. Just ask any of my friends, they will tell you how just how bad I’ve got it for this series. This series has effectively made its servant. I will do what Zelda says, when Zelda says it.

So imagine how I must have felt when that new trailer for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild surfaced. I was frothing at the mouth with all the shit that was revealed. The world looks stunning, the combat looked fluid, and what little bits of the story we have seen look fascinating. There was also the seeming reveal of actual voice acting for this game, (something that I am looking forward to), a possible crafting system, the idea of capturing and taming wild horses, the bonkers idea of a truly open world, the cooking system for regaining health, those goddam octopus looking robots, rock monsters, and just so much more. The new trailer even gives us a look at new characters for the franchise. These all look like really neat additions to the world, whether they are side characters or the sometimes whispered, but unlikely, new party members (wouldn’t that be something) I can’t wait to get to meet them.

Now I am not here to talk about this trailer, believe it or not. I’m here to talk about what this trailer did to me. It gave me the itch. It’s that irresistible pull. It’s that little thing under your skin that you can’t ignore. Namely, it made me put a halt to literally everything else so that I can play every Zelda game I have at my disposal (which is a lot). I will be doing nothing else until I have beaten every game I can in the Zelda franchise. This means no Final Fantasy 15 for the foreseeable future, no Witcher 3, no Bioshock Collection. None of that, it’s Zelda all day every day. Damn you Zelda.​Now that I have decided to let this franchise consume my life for the time being I will be going through each game I can, and then give my brief thoughts on them, for your reading pleasure (if you so desire).

First up; Legend of Zelda: The Skyward Sword. I remember this one being slightly divisive amongst the people I hung out with at the time and even amongst the fan base in general. I recall people not liking it for the more pronounced linearity of the game. It’s understandable where this opinion comes from as the only true open place to really explore is the sky with its number of small floating islands. While this area does look gorgeous it can get tedious at times. While not an overly large area it can take some time to get from one end to another. Other than the sky the game is divided into smaller min-maps of sort. There are the forest, volcano, and desert area. While each expands as the story progresses they are fairly straightforward in execution. You start from one end, find the things you need to find, enter dungeon. Rinse, lather, and repeat. The areas only really get larger once certain story elements are met, while not a bad thing really, it does hamper exploration just a bit. While the areas are well put together and look very nice it does feel a little restrictive when compared to something The Wind Waker.

Having said all of that, it really is just a nitpick in what is overall a great game. The story is very well done, seeing the origins of the cycle that would come to dominate the series overall, and the origins of the fabled Master Sword. These are immensely important events for the series going forward and are told in a way that make sense and just make for a gripping story. There is also a greater sense of customization for Link. You can buy and upgrade various shields and even your sword. You alternate how many pouches of a certain item you carry depending on your playstyle (you can carry more bomb bags than seed pouches if you want). But what really stands out for me is the medallion system. Over the course of the game you will find various medallions that will confer different bonuses if you carry them. From increased health drops, to more treasure, to various other effects it helps to make this link feel more like your own.

While some people didn’t like the reliance on the Wii-motion plus aspect of the combat system I quite enjoyed it. The increased sensitivity of the Wii-mote allowing you where and how to place your strikes, and against enemies that would actually block or attack in certain directions it really makes you feel intelligent or skilled when you defeat them. Of course sometimes you just rage out and swing your arms violently and hope for the best, but that’s not the point. If you can time it right and swing the Wii-mote right you feel like a certified badass, and that’s not a bad thing.

Overall The Skyward Sword has been a delight to play as it builds upon existing Zelda themes and even introduces a few new ones. While some have stuck around and others haven’t it is still a worthy entrant onto this great franchise. Of course I’m sure that any real fan will have known that for years now. Well, now it’s on to the next game for me, most likely to be my personal favorite The Wind Waker. Until next time.​Also, fuck that Imprisoned boss fight. Just….fuck that thing.

Really? Really Bioware? You guys have to drop this on me now? I already have little time to work, keep up a vague form of a social life and try to catch up on all the forms of entertainment that I have fallen woefully behind on. And now you’re going to tell me that in two months I’m going to have the new Mass Effect game on my plate as well?​

For those of you who may be living under a rock or have avoided the internet for the past week Bioware recently revealed that Mass Effect Andromeda will be releasing on May 21st. The game that fans of the series have been waiting for years to release will soon be here for us all to enjoy. We’ve been teased for years and the goal line is finally in sight. We will all get to immerse ourselves in that incredibly rich and vibrant universe again with a host of new characters to get to know and love.

The Problem? You guessed it; I’ll have no goddam time!

If you’ve been reading my ramblings for the past two weeks you’ll know that I have a hilariously large backlog of games that I need to work through. Now while to some this may hardly seem to be a problem at all. Surely I have actual, real problems to focus on. You know, things that actually matter. Of course I do, and I deal with them as they arise. The thing is these games are my method of decompressing or escaping from these issues. Now with all of these great tiles coming out it has become a whole new form of stress. It’s a different, almost pleasant form of stress, but stress none-the-less. Now almost certainly certain games are going to be even further delayed once Andromeda arrives, add to that the fact that I still have Mass Effect 3 to go through and my time keeps shrinking.​I know it may sound like I’m ragging on this subject too much and I don’t mean too. Make no mistake; I am absolutely jacked for this new entry. My excitement levels have been steadily rising as time goes on, and now that I have a release date I can focus all that excitement on a single point. Everything that I have seen about this game from trailers to gameplay footage has looked absolutely stellar. Everything I’ve heard about it make it seem even larger than life. I am so amazingly amped for this game. I just hope I have time to properly enjoy it.

Ok, at the time of writing this I have just finished watching Izetta: The Last Witch so I’m a little emotional, if you haven’t seen that series you really should check it out. While I will absolutely be talking about that in the future I just don’t have time to talk about it now you just gotta bear with me.

So, some of you may remember from last week that I had a bit of a problem starting video games and how the number of games I have to play continues to rise. Well I can now confidently claim that I am now well and truly fucked. What a glorious time Boxing Day and my 30th birthday turned out to be. As if I didn’t have enough on my plate I am now burdened with even more.

Now, video games alone would be enough to take up most of my time, but guess what? I now have an equally large stack of comics to take up my time as well. I suffer from the same problems with comics as I do with video games. There are too many new and shiny things coming out that I constantly pick up more series and older ones that I have inevitably get shuffled to the side. Again, I blame that addictive presence in my life, Overwatch.

In case anybody reading this didn’t know I am a big fan of comic books, that’s why I work with Low Five in the first place. I love them so much that I decided to make an attempt at writing them. So with Christmas, Boxing Day, and my birthday now in the rear-view mirror, I can attempt to crack out reading a few of these while trying to play some of the new video games that I suddenly find myself in possession of. I expect this process to take a great deal of time because goddam it, there will be more things that come out that I will inevitably have to pick up. Such is the lot of a nerd with disposable income such as me.​So with all of that in mind I am going to run down a brand new list of things that I have to work my way through in order to catch up with all the nonsense going on in the world today. Buckle up folks.

1: The Witcher 3 Complete Edition:

Yep, it’s another absolutely massive game for me to go through. I have heard nothing but great things about this game, but for obvious reasons let it slip by me until now. As it turns out, getting the game and all expansions and DLC for about $30 was too good an opportunity to pass up. I have been told many times that this game is right up my alley. Crazy fantasy adventure sounds like a good time to me but I’m sure this will be a 100+ hour investment on my part. Goodie.​2: Odin Sphere Leifthrasir:

So this is one that I hadn’t really heard about before, but there is a guy I work with that absolutely swears by it, and I’m willing to take his word for it. The game looks pretty and the reviews I’ve been able to find make it seem like a good time. And for $5 how can I really go wrong?​3: Dishonored 2:

So this was a birthday present. I didn’t really have any designs to pick this game up any time soon, but hey, I have it now, may as well power through. This was a game that I didn’t really pay much attention to during development or release so I had no idea what to expect. Now that I have it though I have found out it’s a game of the year contender. So how can that be a bad thing? I enjoyed the first Dishonored enough so I see no reason why I won’t enjoy this, besides another potentially massive time sink.​4: East of West:

So, time for the first comic series on my radar. This was pitched to me as a sci-fi western series so immediately I was interested. I’ve heard enough about this series since then to know that it should be good. I’ve honestly been contemplating picking this series up for a while now, and now that I’ve got a few volumes for my birthday I should hopefully be able to start soon.​5: Black Science:

Mad science goes wrong. Mad scientist tries to fix it. Shenanigans ensue. Sign me up. For a long time now I’ve heard about how great this particular series is. I had picked up the first issue a while ago and thoroughly enjoyed it. Now that I have a few of the collected volumes I intend on powering through this one.

Ok, so as you may have guessed by the title, I have a problem. Hopefully it is not a problem that affects only me. It is a problem that will only get worse now that Christmas is over and Boxing Day approaches. It is a rather embarrassing problem that I have given my position as a nerd and general practitioner of the anti-social arts. It’s a problem that continues to baffle me as time moves on.

My problem is that I have a hard time starting video games.

It’s weird to me that I can love video games so much and apparently struggle so much to actually play them. I can be so on board the hype train for a certain game that I will avoid sleep so that I can get the game the moment it releases. I will pre-order the game months in advance. I will look my friends in the eye and tell them how much I am going to play the game when I get it and then let the game sit on my shelf collecting dust or let the digital icon stare at me from my console home screen if I download it. I am honestly not sure why I do it, but I have a great number of video games that I have paid money for and haven’t touched yet. This is a problem because when I think about these games I still get excited to play them and I don’t regret spending the money to buy them, but I still won’t play them. I will tell myself “I’ll get to them when the time is right.” And for many of these titles the time, apparently, hasn’t been right. This is really starting to bug me because I know I am missing out on some damn good games for my own dumbass reasons.

It’s gotten to the point where I’ve had to delete games that I haven’t played from my PS4 to make room for new games that will take me time to get to. It’s a really dumb cycle that I continue.

Now, this all isn’t to say that I don’t play any video games, I still play them dammit. Part of the problem is that I’ll get so engrossed in one particular video game that all others just kind of fall the the wayside. Right now, that particular game is Overwatch. I have pretty shamelessly sold my soul to Overwatch at the moment, turns out Christmas themed updates will do that to me. Throw in some Christmas themed stuff and new character skins and I will throw money at you. Overwatch is a lot of fun for me so I’m not complaining about that, I’m just acknowledging that it takes up a great deal of my time because the winter brawl is fun and dammit I need to raise my competitive score. However, this does prevent me from starting new games because I have the itch for Overwatch.

So, the only course of action I can take is to attempt to make a New Year’s resolution to actually sit my ass down and play these goddam games. Once I have I shall attempt to give my very belated opinions about them. Please bear with me here. Just to give you all an idea of what’s in store for me I’m going to give a quick rundown of some of the games.

​1: Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeros/Metal Gear Solid 5:

Quite frankly I have no idea how this one has slipped by me. Let alone how I have managed to avoid spoilers for so long. I love this franchise so I don’t really know why I haven’t jumped in with both feet. This is one of those things I will have to fix rather soon because I’ve heard a lot of good things about this one. Also the whole “freedom of infiltration” intrigues me.​2: Final Fantasy Type-0:

This is one that Greg likes to talk about. He says it’s good and I trust that opinion. Plus it a Final Fantasy game, so there’s that. Another one of those games where I have avoided spoilers by some freak occurrence.​3: Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

Ok, so this one hasn’t been out long enough for spoilers to be a super relevant thing but somehow my streak of no spoilers lives on. The Deus Ex series has always interested me, but shockingly I have only really played one other from the series, that being Human Revolution. Everything I have seen about this game looks pretty nutty so I am looking forward to actually playing this at some point.​4: Gravity Rush Remastered:

So this is one that I only got recently so I think I deserve a bit of slack here. This is one of those games that I haven’t really heard much about. What I’ve heard and the little I’ve seen make it seem pretty bonkers so this is near the top of my list. I like the idea of gravity powers so hopefully I can crack this out soon.​5: Final Fantasy 15:

Ok, so this is the big one. I only just got it so again go easy on me for not playing it yet. But I`ve heard nothing but good things about it and Greg and company haven`t stopped talking about it. So while there have been minor spoilers on that front I will be going in largely blind. And again, it`s a Final Fantasy game so how can I go wrong here?

So hopefully you’ll all forgive me for this being short but I just got off a night shift and am hilariously tired. However, I can’t keep some of these things to myself so I am going to unload some of my thoughts onto you unfortunate people who have decided to read this. Pokémon: Sun and Moon came out recently, and being the colossal goddam Pokémon fan that I am picked up at midnight. Having played it for a real long time by now I have a few things that I would like to talk about.

No More Gyms: So this is one of the more noticeable changes made to this generation of Pokémon games. In previous generations Gym battles were the sign of progression, they were what moved the game along. They are done away with here to be replaced by the Island Challenges. These are more task based events where the player is required to complete certain objectives before they can continue. There is still a battle element in the challenges but overall this is a fresh take on the idea. This is a welcome change for me because it mixes up the formula in a new and exciting way.

No More HM’s: Holy shit all the HM moves are gone! No more will you have to have a party member cursed with carrying the HM moves. This is a really cool thing they did because it allows for more freedom with what moves your Pokémon can learn and means you don’t have to concern yourself with how to get around certain obstacles. Instead of the HM’s we now have ride Pokémon who perform these duties for you but don’t count towards your party limit. You can call these Pokémon at any time you need them to clear rubble or surf across water. It is a huge relief to not have to worry about those goddam HM’s anymore. Plus riding on the Pokémon is just fun as hell and, quite frankly, should have been done a lot sooner. I can’t be the only person to have ever thought, “wait a minute, that thing is huge. Why aren’t I riding that?” Well now we can. And it’s a glorious thing.

Drampa: What the hell is that? Seriously, what the hell is that?

Ice Sandshrew is best Sandshrew: That is all

Charjabug: Ok, seriously now. Charjabug may be my favorite thing ever. Look at that thing, it’s a bus. Like, an actual bus. And it’s an electric/bug Pokémon. Make sense of that. My Charjabug is a goddam tank and it’s amazing. To be fair it’s also dumb as hell, the concept is ludicrous but that won’t stop me. I love my Charjabug. Charjabug is amazing and I will fight anyone who says otherwise.

So I got a delightful little surprise recently. I found out that all three Mass Effect are now backwards compatible on the Xbox 1. Now as the Mass Effect trilogy is one of my favorite things ever made on this planet, I was understandably excited. The characters come to life in a way that I have rarely seen in video games, and the story keeps me invested throughout. Sure the ending of Mass Effect 3 was terrible (we’ll talk about that later) but the overwhelming majority of this series is amazing.

It has been a few years since I really sat down and played these games so I was fully prepared to sit down for hours on end and forget to eat and how to blink. And that’s pretty much what happened. It’s been about two days since I installed these games and I’ve put about 20 hours into the original Mass Effect. So for now I’m going to talk about my impressions of coming back to the game after so many years.

So, how does Mass Effect hold up after the years? The answer is: alright. While the characters and story remain top-notch, the graphics and layout of the game have not aged well. Now that fact won’t come as a surprise to many of you out there who have known that for a while, but like I said, I haven’t played this game for a while, these details can be lost to me. The problems come from the rather repetitive environments. Unless you’re on one of the main missions of the game the settings look the same. The bases you go through are all the same layout, the enemies you encounter are largely similar, and the planets you explore outside of the main story all start to blend together. I had forgotten that fact before I started so it came as a bit of a shock. This could be due to the restraints of the technology at the time, but the cookie-cutter layouts are obvious to see. Now, the following Mass Effect games do go a long way to fix that problem, but it was still very noticeable.​However, that being said, the dynamic between the characters and the plot of the game are more than enough to make up for any shortcomings that the graphics or the game layouts bring up. These characters feel real. They have their own distinct personalities and quirks that no two are alike, they are completely different characters with their own motivations for helping you. The characters stand out so much from each other that everyone I’ve spoken to has a different favorite. I mean, we all know Tali is the best, but hey, to each their own.

So I got a delightful little surprise recently. I found out that all three Mass Effect are now backwards compatible on the Xbox 1. Now as the Mass Effect trilogy is one of my favorite things ever made on this planet, I was understandably excited. The characters come to life in a way that I have rarely seen in video games, and the story keeps me invested throughout. Sure the ending of Mass Effect 3 was terrible (we’ll talk about that later) but the overwhelming majority of this series is amazing.

It has been a few years since I really sat down and played these games so I was fully prepared to sit down for hours on end and forget to eat and how to blink. And that’s pretty much what happened. It’s been about two days since I installed these games and I’ve put about 20 hours into the original Mass Effect. So for now I’m going to talk about my impressions of coming back to the game after so many years.

So, how does Mass Effect hold up after the years? The answer is: alright. While the characters and story remain top-notch, the graphics and layout of the game have not aged well. Now that fact won’t come as a surprise to many of you out there who have known that for a while, but like I said, I haven’t played this game for a while, these details can be lost to me. The problems come from the rather repetitive environments. Unless you’re on one of the main missions of the game the settings look the same. The bases you go through are all the same layout, the enemies you encounter are largely similar, and the planets you explore outside of the main story all start to blend together. I had forgotten that fact before I started so it came as a bit of a shock. This could be due to the restraints of the technology at the time, but the cookie-cutter layouts are obvious to see. Now, the following Mass Effect games do go a long way to fix that problem, but it was still very noticeable.​However, that being said, the dynamic between the characters and the plot of the game are more than enough to make up for any shortcomings that the graphics or the game layouts bring up. These characters feel real. They have their own distinct personalities and quirks that no two are alike, they are completely different characters with their own motivations for helping you. The characters stand out so much from each other that everyone I’ve spoken to has a different favorite. I mean, we all know Tali is the best, but hey, to each their own.

]]>Mon, 07 Nov 2016 08:00:00 GMThttp://www.lowfive.ca/billys-journal/good-newsSorry Folks, short article today. But also a non-wrestling related one, see I do other things. So, I got some good news today. I wake up, nothing new. I check my phone, not a lot going on. I open my phone, some talk from my friends, that’s normal. I check the news, and that’s when I see it, the glorious ray of light in this darkening world of winter. That is when I found out that it was time to celebrate. It was time to celebrate because Warner Bros. Animation has announced the series Young Justice is returning in a long hoped-for Season 3.

That’s right folks, YOUNG JUSTICE IS BACK!

Like I said, this is good news. While Warner Bros. Animation has not officially announced a release date this is still a very big deal for fans of the show, such as myself and many other members of Low Five. For me, just knowing that production on the new season is beginning now is enough to send me to the moon. Young Justice was too good of a show to let it go out the way it did. The show-runners were told about halfway through the second season that the show would be cancelled due to sub-par toy sales. This left the creative team scrambling in an attempt to wrap up the show with the last remaining episodes. While the team running the show did an admirable job in wrapping up as many of the open story-lines as they could, the show still felt very rushed towards the end. That was a real shame because the show deserved so much more than that.

This was a show that genuinely made the audience care about its characters, told compelling stories, told long term stories that would carry over between the seasons. There was so much going on for this show that it was rather baffling that it was cancelled in the first place. Seriously, this show didn’t stop at being a cartoon for children; it went to a great many uncomfortable places for the sake of the story and in an effort to continue building up the characters. An example being the time that Miss Martian tried to implant love in Superboy’s head. That idea seems like its way above the standard for other animated shows. The idea of a young woman trying to change the way another human being thinks and feels is amazingly creepy, but it is also very compelling when a viewer takes into account the reasons Miss Martian tried the act in the first place.

Now that one act from Miss Martian has so much that can be discussed that it could form its own article, and maybe I’ll try to make that happen at some point. But for now let’s all just revel and bask in the fact that young justice will be coming back to our screens. That we can finally get a continuation of one of the best superhero shows I have seen in a long time. And with the news that the original producers have returned bodes very well for the returning show going forward.

Ok, so by now any of you reading this should know that I am a huge goddamn fan of Godzilla. I grew up watching the movies, bought any toys I could find, even pretended to be Godzilla in my youth. I shake with excitement at any news regarding one of my favorite franchises. So imagine just how excited I was when it was revealed that Toho, the original studio of the Godzilla films, was making another entry in the series. I went into full media blackout in regards to this film. I wanted to go in knowing as little as possible. For the most part I succeeded, there were a few slip ups in regards to certain aspects, but by and large I was able to avoid any plot details that could have dampened my experience.

I recently was able to see the new film during its limited release in North America. For me personally that shit was bonkers. I loved this movie. It could be because I’m a hugely biased Godzilla fan, but I don’t believe that to be true. This was not just a good Godzilla movie; this was a good movie that happened to have Godzilla in it. I don’t think I could say enough good things. It was clear that the people who were making this movie really put the time and effort into ensuring this film not only did justice to Godzilla but also to the other characters present. While everyone who had anything to do with the making of this movie deserves props for it, a lot of credit has to go to the director, Hideaki Anno. While I didn’t know this initially Hideaki Anno was the director of the series Evangelion (never a bad thing). That fact alone gave me great confidence going into this film. There were a great number of things that Anno did in this film that harkened back to the older Godzilla films while also enough new additions to make the film standout on its own.​Now, I really want to go into extreme detail about everything in this movie. However, there are people I know that would like to remain in the dark until they have a chance to see it. With that in mind I’m going to do a short summary on the things that really stood out for me while being as vague as possible.

1. Is it a monster movie: Quick answer is no. What surprised me the most was that this film was not presented as a straight monster movie, which may seem strange considering how this is a Godzilla movie after all. Instead, rather than be a monster movie this film was presented as a natural disaster movie. The scenes of destruction to the images of the aftermath call to mind the images you’d see on the news after a hurricane or a tornado. It was chilling at times to see how the devastation in the movie closely resembled the disasters of today. There are certain shots in the movie that look like they were lifted out of the news and put into the movie. I really liked this take on Godzilla. He wasn’t an evil force, he didn’t have a vendetta against humanity, he was just a force of nature. Godzilla was more depicted like a hurricane than a monster, destroying anything in his path, but with no evil intentions, just nature. What was also interesting was the depiction of how the government worked during the crisis. I won’t go into too much depth right now, but it was certainly an interesting, if not accurate, representation.

2. Scale: Oh boy, did Godzilla ever look big. I mean really big. Impressively big. Just, goddamn was he big. And scary too. Just really big and really scary. Hideaki Anno really hit it out of the park with the physical appearance of Godzilla, he looked enormous. He effectively used camera angles to show just how giant Godzilla was. Throughout the movie Anno used various techniques, even what appeared to be cellphone footage at one point, to really convey the size of Godzilla. There were many low angle shots from the people on the ground looking up at Godzilla which were very well done. However, perhaps the best example of the size of Godzilla is when he isn’t even the focus of the shot. The scene would be two or more characters discussing something important to the plot (trying really hard to keep out spoilers) and you would just see Godzilla in the background. He’s not the focus of the shot, but you just can’t help but notice him. It was incredible to see how even when he’s not taking an active part you just can’t ignore Godzilla.

3. Tone: Hideaki Anno did an incredible tightrope act with the tone of this film. As with any Godzilla movie there is an overriding sense of fear and despair. It’s easy to see why. There is a giant rampaging monster tearing through the country that can’t be stopped. However, like I said before, this is a natural disaster. So instead, the helplessness and despair feels right, that sense of unease in the face of nature, which was an interesting thing. While at times it was dark and seemingly hopeless it never strayed too far down that path. While there were certainly times of despair there were more than enough moments of humor to balance it out. Now like the sense of darkness the humor never took over too much. What I really like about the humor of this movie was that it never became overbearing. In fact much of the humor was unintentional on the characters’ part. While we the audience might find the situation or the delivery of a line funny, it was not meant to be that way to the people in the film. The people in the film don’t know they’re being funny, which was the perfect way to put humor in a movie like this. Despite all of this, there is an underlying sense of hope throughout most of the movie. Much like many other natural disasters there is the sense that things will get better. That shows many times throughout as various characters come together to try and solve this problem.

4. Soundtrack: The soundtrack on this movie is haunting at times. Every song feels appropriate for the scene it is in. This will be a short part because there isn’t much else left to say. The soundtrack was damn near perfect. But the standout piece is the original theme to Godzilla. Not a remix, not a new version; the actual original score from the first ever Godzilla movie. It was a nice touch that further cemented this as a true Godzilla film.​5. The Atomic Breath: Holy shit. Just……Holy shit. That was crazy. I can’t say too much more about it here. You need to see that for yourself. Just, god damn. That may be the most utterly devastating version of the atomic breath I have ever seen. Just….wow.

This is something that was brought about by reading Scott’s great article on wrestling. It’s a very good look at the state of affairs in the company. You can check that out HERE! Now, I felt like doing something a little different from the route Scott has taken. So instead of reviewing a show right now, I will be running down a list of my favourites performers performing in the WWE today.

I will state that this list will probably leave off many worthy characters; I’m going to try and remedy that situation by doing separate articles. Perhaps I will write an article on my favourite wrestlers ever. Perhaps I’ll do one on each of the rosters of RAW and Smackdown Live. Perhaps I’ll write one with an expanded roster just so I can include the egregious omissions.

For now, this list is purely my personal choices for who are my favourites in the WWE at this particular time. I will take the time to expand articles such as these so I can include other organizations and get new people in here.​But for now, here are my top five performers in the WWE today.​5. Charlotte

This woman is quickly rising in my personal rankings. Number one, she is just an amazingly talented wrestler. Everything she does in the ring is fluid and precise; she very rarely makes a mistake in the ring (except for one horrifying spot at Summerslam 2016, we’ll talk about that another time). She can go in the ring and has that rare talent for making the other people she is in the ring with look even better. She is capable of drawing good matches out of anyone. The old joke being you could have her wrestle a ladder and she’d make the ladder look amazing. The fact that Charlotte is looking so good now is a great thing for the company as a whole. This is because there is now a greater amount of attention being paid to the women who wrestle these days. This is not a bad thing for Charlotte because she is good enough that everyone should be watching everything she does.

However, what really sets Charlotte apart for me is her character work. She plays one of the best heels (villain) on the planet right now. Everything she does in the ring, every promo she delivers just drips with arrogance. She carries herself in such a manner that it makes it seem like she’s better than anyone else in the room. And you know what? She’s right. What also makes her character so great is that she is a cowardly heel. She will not hesitate to try and get out of a straight fight, she’ll cheat, steal, anything to get the win. Most notably she’s been hanging around with another wrestler by the name of Dana Brooke. This partnership is disguised as Dana being the protégé, when in reality she is there to help Charlotte win matches. The two work well together so not much bad there. However, don’t let her heel tactics fool you. She is an amazing worker in the ring and more than capable of winning on her own. And that fact feeds into her heel character. She’s so good but still has her “protégé” interfere on her behalf. She’s just the best.​Also, just for Scott. Her standing moonsault is fucking gorgeous

This is the guy that nobody thought they would see in the WWE. This was the guy that was so synonymous with rival company TNA that fans of the WWE were convinced seeing him in their ring was nothing but a pipe-dream.

That all changed in that one glorious moment in the Royal Rumble 2016 when AJ Styles shocked the wrestling world by walking out to the ring. I saw it happen. That shit was nuts. The reaction that man got from the crowd was deafening. The moment where his music hits for the first time still gives me goosebumbs to this day.

Why do I love him? Because he is possibly the best damn worker on the planet today. The man is what is known as a high flyer (means a lot of flippy things). What is amazing is even after working for as long as he has he looks just as good, if not better now, than he ever has before. The man has yet to put on a bad match since joining the WWE. Hell, he’s even just recently put on a match of the year contender against John Cena at Summerslam. In everything he does AJ Styles looks incredible. If you are capable I suggest you find any of his matches in WWE and watch them. Sure there have been stellar matches outside WWE, but that’s not what this list is about dammit! A good place to start would be the match with Cena at Summerslam. Other examples being his matches against Roman Reigns at either Payback or Extreme Rules.

As with Charlotte, I love him because he is capable of great character work as well. When he debuted in WWE he was as a hardworking babyface (good guy). However, more recent times has seen him switch almost completely to a raging ego-maniac heel. If anything that move is even better for him because he has been crushing it as a heel. His feud with John Cena really stands out as some of his best work in the company to date. Seriously you need to check this guy out if you haven’t.​3. Becky Lynch:

Oh, Becky Lynch. You’re just the best. Much like Charlotte previously on this list Becky is one of the best performers, male or female WWE has at the moment. And with a nickname like “The Irish Lass Kicker” how can you not love this person. She is a wizard in the ring technically, always knows what she’s doing in a match, and much like Charlotte, she can drag a good match out of damn near anyone. In an era where there is much more emphasis being put on the women wrestlers it’s comforting to know that people like Becky Lynch are there to perform.

What also makes her special as far as this list is concerned is that she is the only true babyface at the moment. While others on the list who have dabbled with being a face in the past, Becky is the only one here who has not been swayed by the darkside, and that is a very good thing. I really like Becky because she does very good character work as a face. For example, if you can find it, probably on youtube, watch her contract signing for her match against Alexa Bliss. Here we see Becky at her absolute best. She plays the humble champion very well, but what sets her apart from other faces is that she is not afraid to lose control of her emotions and go off on opponents. She will brawl with anybody on the spot. It’s that fiery temper that sets her apart. While others may be more strategic than her, it’s the fact she can just go full out against an opponent at any moment that sets her apart. The fact that she is portrayed as having a fiery temper while still maintaining that sense of humbleness is one of many reasons I am super on board with Becky Lynch.

The fact that she is cute as a button doesn’t hurt either.​2: Bray Wyatt:

I’m going to make something clear right now; if it weren’t for the next man on this list Bray Wyatt would have easily been number one. That’s how much I love this guy. Bray Wyatt is presented as a strange, swamp man/preacher/cult leader from the Bayou. He is easily one of the most fascinating characters I’ve seen in the WWE for a very long time. The fact that he had his creepy hillbilly family with him when he debuted just made it even better.

Seriously everything this guy does in character is just gold. His entrance alone is just incredible, he makes his way down to the ring in the dark with only a lantern lighting him up. It’s super atmospheric and just a joy to watch. Seriously check that out Here. His promos can be dynamite because Bray has a very soft spoken manner. He rarely raises his voice but I always find myself listening to every word. He can get a bit ramble-y and nonsensical at times but that really doesn’t matter when a person is this charismatic. The man just oozes charisma. He can also be one of the scariest individuals in the company, which suits his character just fine. He’s fallen off a bit recently, but that’s more to the WWE’s poor booking of him than lack of talent.

He even carries his creepiness over to his in ring work. He incorporates a backwards spiderwalk into his matches which just looks creepy as hell. His style is really smashmouth with a lot of power moves and him literally throwing himself around the ring. This guy is seriously one of the best acts that the WWE have today. Goddamn is he great.​1. Chris Jericho

The only reason Chris Jericho beats out Bray Wyatt on this list is because Chris Jericho may just be my favourite wrestler ever. Full stop. That’s all. He is simply that damn good. Chris Jericho has been in the WWE for over 15 years and he has looked amazing for damn near every second.

Jericho may be one of the most versatile performers the WWE has ever seen in the ring. There is very little he can’t do in terms of actual wrestling, and while he does make the occasional mistake in the ring they are few and far between.

But what really sets Jericho apart from the rest of the people in the company is his character work. I said he is versatile in the ring, what he can do in terms of character is nothing less than astounding. This guy is the master of character reinvention. He has played so many different versions of himself that it makes head spin. The thing is he plays them all so well you can’t help but believe him. He is able to play a straight-forward babyface that plays to the crowd, to a raving, ego maniacal rock-star heel, and anything that comes in between those two.

Even today Chris Jericho is on top of his game. In fact, the stuff he is doing right now may be the best work he’s ever done in his career. He plays a very cocky heel. The thing about it is that he is also super goofy about it. He has made a habit of keeping a list of people who have pissed him off, and he successfully turned it into a running joke. It’s amazing. He’s the kind of guy that tries to sound tough but always makes it sound kind of dumb, and it’s just the best.​Chris Jericho may just be the best ever. And that is the gift of Jericho. Drink it in, man.

]]>Mon, 12 Sep 2016 07:00:00 GMThttp://www.lowfive.ca/billys-journal/random-thoughts-for-the-weekThis will be another one of those things where I give you all a quick glimpse into where my mind has wandered over the past few days. Again, some may be important, some may not

1. Overwatch: I’ve been playing Overwatch pretty much since it came out. It’s the perfect blend of insanity, fun, and competitiveness for me. Where else am I going to be able to play as a hyper-intelligent gorilla who uses a giant electrical gun? Or what accounts to a ghost dual-wielding shotguns? Or a guy on roller-blades who heals wounds with sound waves?

The thing is that the second season of competitive mode was launched about a week ago form the writing of this article. Now, I’m normally not a super competitive player, I just like to dick around for the fun of it, but this version of competitive play caught my attention because it sorted players by skill ranking. This means that I’d be playing with people who are around my level, instead of being smoked by the true elites of the game I just happened to be matched up with.

The problem is that I’m still not that great at the game, as a result my record suffers because of it. This results in me wanting to fix that, and as a result playing that goddamn game for fucking hours. I should have been asleep a long time ago, but I’m riding a four game losing streak and dammit I need to go out on a win. It’s a vicious cycle. I know I should stop, but pride demands I keep going. This results in my ranking decreasing like crazy while I curse that fucking archer who keeps killing me. Why is there a goddamn archer in the fucking future?! Why is he beating the rocket wielding jet pack trooper?! It makes no sense…but holy shit is it fun.​I’ve actually started to dig myself out of the hole I find myself in, so things are trending in the right direction.

2. The World Cup of Hockey: Is this event necessary? Hell no. Will I watch the ever loving fuck out of it? Absolutely. I love me my hockey, so any excuse for me to watch it I’ll take. Sure the setup for this tournament is goofy, but I’m sure it’ll still be fun.

3. Shin Godzilla/Godzilla Resurgence: For those who may not know, I’m a huge Godzilla fan. I have been since I was four years old. I’d heard a while ago that Toho, the studio that created the Godzilla franchise was doing another film. Needless to say I was intrigued. I saw the trailers, all of which made Godzilla look like a goddamn force of nature again. I’m super excited about that. While I will always love the goofy champion of the world Godzilla, there is something to be said for returning him to his roots. Not necessarily as a villain, just an elemental force that can’t be controlled. I cannot wait to see this movie. I’ve found out that they will be having a limited release in North America and desperately hope to see it. If I do I’ll probably write a piece on it. I know there are plenty of those already, but none of them are mine. Godzilla for the Win!

It is an undeniable and may I say fundamental quality of man that when faced with extinction…every alternative is preferable. These are the words that kick off season six of Red vs Blue. These are the words that draw us in. Throughout the first seasons of the show we only got snippets of the larger conflict taking place. Season six brings to light of the conflict that gave rise to Project Freelancer, namely the fight against the aliens. Agent Washington describes Project Freelancer as one of the “silver bullet” ideas to turn the tide of the war. The situation sounded brutal and dire. Washington painted a gloomy picture of the situation that I was eager to see in these prequel seasons.

The problem? There were no aliens. Instead what we got as villains was a seemingly random group of humans dubbed “the Insurrection.” Their motives were not exactly made clear, we didn’t really know who they were or where they came from. Essentially all we are given to go on is that they are the bad guys. They are the ones fighting against Project Freelancer, that’s it. My problem with this set up is that the Insurrection isn’t really portrayed as villains worth fighting. The first time we see the Insurrection they are being absolutely wiped out by Agents North and South Dakota. ​

It’s essentially an extended ass kicking as wave after wave of insurrection troops are wiped out by the twin agents. Even when the Insurrection finally seems to have the upper hand Agent Carolina shows up and an even more violent ass kicking ensues. Sure, there are a few characters from the Insurrection that put up a fight they too are defeated without much trouble. They put up enough of a fight to look competent without really being a threat.

That is where my issues lays, the fact that the villains are so easily dealt with. There are multiple scenes where Insurrection troops are being wiped out by the dozens by Project Freelancer. These people just don’t seem threatening. At no point did I feel like the main characters were in danger. They were pitted against inferior foes, there were no stakes involved. To be fair the fight scenes were certainly a spectacle, I am not complaining about that. Personally I feel that these scenes, and as a result the seasons, would have benefited from a more imposing villain.​The way I would have done it? Aliens. Aliens everywhere.

One of the first things that would be done in my take on this saga is that the main antagonists would be the aliens. As my take on the sage would be starting near the beginning of Project freelancer I feel like they would be more interesting compared to the Insurrection. Secondly, they would be far more imposing. That would be my big change; these aliens are going to be legitimate monsters. These guys need to be a real danger, and they are going to be. We are going back to the quote that started off season six. We are going to make the extinction of the human race a very real possibility. Much like their inspiration from the original Halo series these guys are going to be wiping out planets. My plan is to have a sense of doom hanging over the series. For all intents and purposes these aliens are going to be damn near unstoppable. I’d want to have similar scenes to the original with the aliens wiping out large numbers of human troops. The difference would be that these would not be the over the top kung-fu extravaganzas that they were before, these would be brutal showcases of just how much stronger the aliens are. These would be to show that the aliens are not to be trifled with. The entire point of these early confrontations with the aliens is to prove that they are worthy villains with clear intent. They are here to wipe out humanity. These fights are going to be ugly things. These will show that the aliens are a clear danger that wasn’t present in the original version.

Of course there would be fights between the aliens and the agents of Project freelancer. The aliens would be annihilating some colony world when the Freelancers make a dramatic entrance to the scene. As I stated before these fights wouldn’t really be anything flashy. These would be dirty and brutal. These fights aren’t about showing off to the audience, these would be about survival. This isn’t about the Freelancers being superheroes performing crazy feats of martial arts, this is about the freelancers being one of the last things that humanity could throw at the aliens to stop them. The aliens would be overpowering with the freelancer agents becoming more and more desperate. The Freelancers would be performing ever more desperate feats simply to stall the aliens. I feel like that would be an important theme for the start. It’s not about winning; it’s about buying time for the rest of humanity to get its collective shit together. These fights would go on and on, and not everyone would make it out.

Here is another thing that will change because of the alien threat. Characters from Project Freelancer are going to die in battle. I feel like this is important to highlight the fact that these aliens are a legitimate threat. Whereas against the Insurrection the agents felt nigh invincible there will be a definite sense of mortality amongst the characters. I’m not saying that we kill the original cast, but this allows us to introduce new characters to the show, perhaps even whole new teams from Project Freelancer (with the added runtime of this saga that all of a sudden becomes much more plausible). We can get to know these people, make them actual characters so that when the die we feel it too. This also paves the way to introduce the rookie Agent Washington later on.I’m not saying that everything has to be gloom and doom, but having a legitimate threat in the form of these monsters would do the saga some good. Having something that is actually a danger for these characters to fight will help them grow and will set up how the series plays out further down the road. The inclusion of the aliens will feed into the quote from season six, people are dying and there is a very real sense of desperation amongst the characters to find a solution, more specifically the Director. The increasingly dire situation will lead various characters to do things that would previously been unthinkable.Next Time: The Director

Unfortunately I will have to keep this brief as it is early in the morning and I work night-shifts. I know I said a series of articles about my take on the Freelancer Saga would be coming, but I have to make this one short digression I’ll start out by saying that until recently Gone Homewas a P.C exclusive game until very recently so I had not had the chance to play it. It came to me strongly recommended by my friend Lee. I had never seen him so adamant about something like this before. Lee is a person who I can totally trust with my gaming or entertainment life without worry, so for him to tell me to literally drop what I was doing to get this game caught my attention. Needless to say, I was not let down. If you the reader have had a chance to play before seeing this, I hope you will agree that this game gave us a unique experience that I hadn’t really gotten before. Once again I hope any readers who have already played the game will agree.I fear that I can’t say too much about Gone Home because I don’t want to ruin the experience for anyone. If you have the opportunity to go into this game blind, I strongly encourage you to do so. Lee told me not to google anything about the title, look for nothing on the internet, to go in with as little information as possible. So I did. And I was rewarded for keeping myself in the dark on this one. I will say again, if you haven’t yet played this game and know nothing about it….keep it that way. Go in with fresh eyes like I did and you will have a very interesting time.

This game starts out simply enough; with the main character Katie coming home from a year-long trip to Europe. She is standing on the front porch of the family house; it’s dark and you can hear a terrible storm overhead. That’s where I’m going to leave my description of this game. If I say anymore it may give away too much because I will want to talk about every little thing in this work that worked so well, and I would have to go over what they are, what they did, and essentially the overall plot. So that is where I’ll leave, on a darkened front porch of a house in the woods, on a dark and stormy night. Really sets the atmosphere, right?

That is what I really want to talk about the most, the atmosphere of the game. It positively overflows here. It oozes out of every wall. Seeps out of every floor, is seen through every darkened window. This game built atmosphere unlike many that I had seen before. This is something you really need to experience for yourself as the story unfolds (I will also say that the story structure is actually very interesting as well). The game itself has a relatively simple structure, but you are so wrapped up in everything that you find that throughout the game you quickly forget about how simple the game is.

Minutes into this game and I was feeling many different emotions. You learn more about the characters that aren’t on screen from various items around the area and that alone is amazing. But the atmosphere shifts as you move along the house. At one point I wondered if all the lights I was leaving on or the doors I was leaving open was a good thing, bad thing, or if it even mattered at all. The atmosphere of the game pulled me into it in such an extent that I spent a solid fifteen minutes standing still wondering if I should close the door, just to be safe. I was so enveloped in that particular time that I was legitimately wasting time over a door and how it might come into play later.​I’ve probably said more than I wanted to at this point, but seriously, go play this game. It is totally worth the $20 it is on PSN right now. I was a little late to the party so maybe it was more well-known back in 2013 when it was first released. But I feel like it deserves much more attention than it’s getting now. Seriously, play this game. I will more than likely do a follow-up on this one, it’ll be a bit more detail oriented as to what exactly I liked about it, so consider this to be a spoiler warning. Rest assured that I will get back to the Project Freelancer bit very soon.

Let me just start this out by saying that I am a huge Rooster Teeth fanboy. I remember in high school when the first episode of the series Red vs. Blue debuted. That was a good time; I was immediately hooked by the fact that the people at a fledgling company called Rooster Teeth were using a science fiction action game to tell a story where the big point is that nothing happens. I hadn’t seen anything like it before. The humor was amazing, the characters were amazingly memorable, and the story very quickly drew me into the world these people were creating. Now Rooster Teeth is a massive company that is involved in many different projects and even foster an amazing online community the likes of which I have rarely seen. But it’s always Red vs. Blue that brings me back.

Red out with a series of ragtag soldiers on opposing armies in conflict over a box canyon with no value. Conflict is a strong term for what they did because they mostly stood around talking, and that’s what made the series hilarious and unique. It didn’t revolve around the action, it revolved around the characters. However, as any good series must do, the story progressed and evolved. The universe that these characters inhabited became so large and detailed it is a marvel to see. These characters who were terrible soldiers all of a sudden were thrust into a conflict much larger than themselves. They were forced to become heroes; terrible, reluctant heroes, but heroes nonetheless.​However, one thing that always intrigued me about the series as it progressed was the shadowy organization in the background known as Project Freelancer. We’d met a few characters from the organization by the time Season Eight had wrapped up. In fact, some of the characters from Project Freelancer served as the series villains. All of these characters came out of Project Freelancer, an organization that we had only heard about second-hand. We hear about some of the shady things they had done but had never seen it.

That’s why I was excited when Rooster Teeth announced they would be exploring Project Freelancer with seasons of the show that would take place before the main series. To show the audience what and who exactly Project Freelancer was. Once these seasons were over I couldn’t help but feel just a little disappointed. Sure there was a lot of flashy new animation but I felt as if the focus of the series shifted away from the story and the characters to these crazy action scenes. Don’t get me wrong, the new animation made those action scenes an absolute spectacle to see, but I just couldn’t shake the feeling that something was missing.

That is what brings us here. While I still enjoyed the Freelancer Saga there were things that were missing or just seemed off to me. These following articles will explain what I would have liked to see and why. This is how I would have done the Freelancer Saga. I don’t want to say I’d do it better because I still enjoyed these seasons, I just think that these points will address the shortcomings I felt these seasons had. The points will range from how characters are presented and how they interact with each other, how the seasons are structured, and even change some of the core elements of the story, not too much, but enough to address what I feel needs to be addressed. Again, not saying my ideas are better, this is just how I would have liked to see it go.​Part One: Saga Structure

For those who may not be familiar the Freelancer Saga was divided across two seasons. What made these unique was the fact that the seasons were further split between Project Freelancer in the past and the present day stories. As a result each season was split in half between two different timelines. While this did show some interesting parallels between the plots it also took away time from each that could have been used to further develop characters and story, as a result the first thing we are going to do is do away with the divided seasons. This will keep the focus on the new characters and stories that are being introduced for the first time. Next, we address the number of seasons. I know this would be somewhat implausible given how the series is made but we are going to dedicate three entire seasons to the Freelancer Saga solely as it takes place before the present events of Red vs. Blue. As the saga stands now it is really only about one season’s worth of content. While it did do a good job regarding some characters and plot points it felt rushed or under-developed in others. The three complete seasons will allow us as the audience to connect with these new characters on the same level as we did with the originals. We will see them and all their strengths and faults as they develop more over time. This will also allow some of the original plot points to be expanded upon and new to be introduced (more on those later).​Now an important question that needs to be asked is “what happens to the present day material involving Agent Carolina with the Reds and Blues. The answer is simple; we give that story its own season as well. However, there is another story that needs to be told, that of how Carolina found the Reds and Blues, and how they broke out Epsilon at a later date. We give this story its own season as well. Again, I know this is a damn near ludicrous thing to say given the crazy amount of time, effort, and money that would be needed to pull this off, but trust me, it’ll be worth it (again, more later).

Besides the number of seasons, the next big change would be to eliminate the story of following the Epsilon A.I into the failing memory unit. For those unfamiliar, Season eight ended with the character of Church/Epsilon, an A.I fragment, plunging into a memory unit in order to try and rescue another A.I character. He does not get out in time and is stuck in the memory unit. What follows in season nine is Epsilon’s own version of how the events of the early season played out. While this is a humorous idea it does little to advance the overall plot of the series. This effectively creates an extra half season worth of time that can be dedicated to the first full season of the Freelancer Saga. Now, in the memory unit plot the only significant character development is made by Church/Epsilon as he is the only “real” character present, all the other characters in this particular part of the season or figments of his imagination. These versions of Sarge, Grif, Simons, Donut, Tucker, and Caboose aren’t the real versions. As a result this makes any interaction between these characters meaningless. While their slightly altered characters are funny at times it doesn’t mean anything by the end. The events that take place in the memory unit also aren’t real and as such could be done without. The only plot point of substance is Epsilon’s growing sense of acceptance of his own “mortality” and the fact that he has to let go of his memories of Tex, the character he came in after.

Now, as these points are somewhat important to the character of Epsilon and his journey we can’t get rid of them entirely. So what do we do? We take the important events of the memory unit and we condense them into a mini-series. This will be much along the lines of previous mini-series in the Red vs. Blue universe like Out of Mind, Recovery One, or Relocated. I’ll admit I had concerns with making it a mini-series as it seems to be a big development point for one of the series main characters. I quickly realised that there have been bigger developments in the various mini-series as well. The character of Agent Washington is introduced in Out of Mind; anyone familiar with the series will know that Washington is a major character now. The character of York is introduced and then killed within the same mini-series Out of Mind; he is another character who plays a large part in the Freelancer saga. As a result, it shouldn’t be a huge stretch to imagine condensing the memory unit plot down to the essential bits and fitting it in as a six episode mini-series.

That is just the beginning of how I would have liked to see the saga go. I know it’s pretty much insane of me to damn near triple the size of the saga, but for me, if we are really going to connect with these characters we need the extra time. If we are going to watch these characters grow, if we are going to laugh and cry with them as they try and find their way through the storm of bullshit coming at them we need the extra time. If we want to hold them up to the same level as characters like Sarge, Grif, Simons, Donut, Church, Tucker, Caboose, or Tex, we need time to understand these people and what’s happening around them. The Freelancer Saga is really the first introduction we get to a great deal of characters that inhabit this saga, if we want to get to know them; we need the time to do so.

Stay tuned as next time I delve further into The Freelancer Saga and how I would have done it.

]]>Tue, 27 Oct 2015 07:00:00 GMThttp://www.lowfive.ca/billys-journal/committing-to-the-death-of-a-characterFor now I’m going to keep this brief as at the time of writing this I am exhausted. I’m going to be vague here to try and limit spoilers for those who don’t know what happened. Chances are by this point many people know of that big death of a character in a beloved ongoing series. You all know who and what I mean. It was a shocking thing that people hoping wouldn’t happen. And yet it did. Immediately there were a number of fans who were compiling evidence claiming that the death was a fake, that it was all smoke and mirrors. That it didn’t happen. They claim that not everything is as it seems. That there is reason to hope that this character will be alive for us to continue to enjoy.

Not me. I for one hope this character is, in fact, dead. To be clear, it’s not because I dislike this character. I want this character to be dead because if it was some bullshit fake-out it diminishes everything that happened before. This will not be some miracle that pulls the character through; it will be the creators not being able to commit to a dramatic change to the status quo. That’s where my problem comes into play. There have been many examples of a popular character dying only to be brought back and given some dumb reason to have made it out of an impossible situation. I don’t like that.

If creators want to leave a mark they have to commit to the death to leave a lasting mark. If they don’t; if they cave into fan pressure or their own insecurities about what may happen it cheapens and often times invalidates the experiences of the character and dilutes the effects for the fans. If a character is going to die there needs to be a commitment to that fact from the creators. Everything about the character has led to this. This should be the culmination of their arc. This should be where everything comes full circle. Everything the character has done and the choices they made led the character to this moment. The death itself may not be the presented perfectly; it may not be what the character deserves. If it’s a popular character surely the fans will rage or fell saddened. But that’s the point. Not everything plays out how we want it. For all that to be undone because creators can’t stick to a decision bothers me. For a character seemingly to die only to show up later with a lame and implausible reason for escape cheapens everything for me.

I don’t have a problem with my favourite characters dying. My problem is when the people calling the shots are afraid to commit to the fact. In all likelihood I’ll revisit this idea in greater detail. Preferably when I am not exhausted.

]]>Fri, 23 Oct 2015 07:00:00 GMThttp://www.lowfive.ca/billys-journal/quick-but-late-thoughts-on-that-new-star-wars-posterKeep in mind that this was being written before the new trailer came out, so any speculation here may be proved hilariously wrong. As we are all aware by now there was that shiny new poster for Star Wars: The Force Awakensreleased recently. Of course I, like almost every other person on the planet, poured over every detail of it. I will now give my super late, and rather brief, impressions on the poster.First things first, I noticed there no Luke Skywalker to be found anywhere on this poster. This was kinda odd to me because Luke had that cool voice over in the previous trailer talking about his family and how the force was strong with them. Perhaps he was left off the poster deliberately; maybe Luke only has a small role in the movie. Or maybe they couldn’t put Luke onto the poster without revealing large spoilers for his character.

Of course it was hard not to notice the other important characters from the original trilogy. Good old Han Solo and Princess Leia. There’s nothing super important in this particular case, just fun to see Han Solo being all roguish it up again. Going back to my previous point, it’s interesting that Han and Leia are featured on the poster but Luke is not.

Another interesting thing to note is how the new and presumably main characters are presented on the posters. We see John Boyega’s character firmly on the Light side of the poster, not much of a surprise really. What interested me was that Daisy Ridley’s character on the Dark side, rather close to the character Kylo Ren. Now this could just be coincidence, maybe they put her there because there was no more room on the poster, maybe it means something more. Perhaps this is a clue that her character is about to start down the path to the dark side, perhaps she shares a particular bond with Kylo Ren. Who knows?

Of course I have to mention that thing in the background that looks suspiciously like another giant space station. I could be wrong but that looks like a Death Star 3.0. If that’s the case then you really have to admire the Empire’s stick to it attitude. After all, third time’s the charm. If that thing does turn out to be another super weapon to blow up planets I can’t help but wonder how that conversation went.

“Hey, what was that giant space thing with the laser that we keep building but is always destroyed?”

We’ve all been there. We all have that one boss who made us pull our hair out or try and throw our controller through the screen. Then again, some boss battles are just so cool that they stay with us, that we can look back on fondly. These are the battles that we can recount to our friends

how we stayed up for hours on end with nothing but pretzels, energy drinks, and either anger or determination to sustain us. How we would spend hours on end trying to beat these guys. How we would rage when some bullshit killed us, or how we would celebrate when we finally killed the goddam asshole that was holding us up. This here is my subjective list of personal favourites. For the sake of diversity I’m not putting Bowser on this list because…..come on; we all know he’s there.

The Reaper, Mass Effect 2:

This boss makes the list because we are finally coming face-to-face with a Reaper. You know, that evil alien race we’ve spent the last few weeks of our lives hearing about? You finally get to see the thing up close. You finally get to see what makes the Reapers tick. You also get to see what the alien Collectors were doing with all the humans they had been capturing.​Spoiler alert: it’s gross.​Turns out the Collectors were liquefying the captured humans to help create the body for the new Reaper. Add in that little tidbit of information and you have the makings of a great fight. The atmosphere the fight takes place in was awesome and the skeletal Reaper form was suitably creepy. When you take into account the totally badass end run leading up to this fight and the sense of hopelessness you get when you see the cut-scenes of your crew fighting valiantly to give you time and it makes one of the best climaxes to a game I’ve seen in some time.

The End, Metal Gear Solid 3:

This one may not be the most action packed, but it more than makes up for that with tension. The purpose of this confrontation is to find the enemy sniper known only as “The End.” By and large this fight is largely stationary. You are in a sniper duel and you have to find your enemy in the forest. The only problem is this guy is camouflaged insanely well. You’re forced to use various means to find this guy. You can try and follow his footprints, you can track his breathing with your directional mic, and you can even try and spot his pet bird that is flying around. You can also try and find him by looking for the glint of the sun off his sniper scope, but if you see that chances are he’s seen you. This fight takes place over three separate areas of map so it’s quite diverse in how you want to go about finding him. This entire fight is nerve wracking as you will have no idea where he is for the longest time, and you can’t risk moving too much or else you’ll give up your position. However, what makes this encounter truly unique is that you don’t even need to do it. Earlier in the game you can kill him from a distance, or you can set the Play Station clock a head by a certain time and the guy will die of old age. I don’t recommend it though as you’d be missing out on a hell of an experience, but just having the option is cool.​

The Colossus, Shadow of the Colossus:

Now, some of you may think that it’s cheating to give a spot on the list to a game that is essentially based around boss fights. However I couldn’t just ignore this game. I know that many people will have their own favorites but for the purpose of this list I’m going to limit it to the very first Colossus. I know there are more challenging Colossi or even flashier ones out there, but this one stands out because it is the first.

I am choosing the first Colossus because that was our gateway into the game. That was our first eye-opening experience in this world where these giants walk the earth. This first battle was what made me sit back and really think about the task ahead of me. I remember coming around the corner and seeing this first Colossus, walking around, and freezing. I looked at this thing and asked “how do I even begin to beat this. Rather quickly I said to myself, “I don’t know. I have no idea.” Through various trial and error methods you eventually figure out how to defeat these things. And that’s why the first Colossus is on this list, it was more of a puzzle than a fight. It made you rely more on intelligence than strength which was a rather new experience for me at the time. Not to mention this battle really set the tone for the game moving forward.

Ganon, Legend of Zelda: The Windwaker:

Ah yes, my favorite boss fight from my favorite Zelda game. This entire fight was so cinematic. From Ganon giving a rather touching speech before the fight, to the impending sense of doom as the water pours down around you, to Link and Zelda teaming up one last time to take down the mad tyrant, and of course, Ganon’s deranged laughter as his plans fall apart around him. This was one of the more visually stunning fight’s I’ve seen from the Legend of Zelda series. The fight itself was fast paced and tension filled as the player engages in a swordfight with Ganon the likes of which hadn’t been seen in the series before. The player is pushed to keep Ganon at bay while still trying to defeat him. Oh and how does Link beat Ganon? Is it by sealing him away again? Or banishing him to some other dimension? Hell no, Link stabs Ganon in the face with the sword. In the god damn face. Seriously, that shocked me the first time I saw it. This Link was a stone cold killer. Cute graphics be damned, this was one kid you didn’t want to mess with.

Emerald Weapon, Final Fantasy VII:

Seriously, fuck this guy. If you’ve played the game you know what I mean. This guy can go die in a fire, except that won’t work because this fucking guy lives under the fucking water. You have to find him in the ocean, and if you don’t have the proper piece of equipment ready you only have 20 minutes to kill him. Normally that wouldn’t be a problem, but this guy has an obscene amount of health to go along with his ludicrous attack power. Even if you do have the equipment to fight underwater if you don’t have the Knights of the Round summon you are in for a long, and bullshit filled, experience.​Now, all of that isn’t to say that this boss battle isn’t worth it, it’s still super cool. This is still one of the more iconic fights from the game. Besides, there are more annoying fights in the game; Ruby Weapon for example. Anyone who has played Final Fantasy VII through will have had a few run-ins with this guy. While the fight is long, and you will suffer throughout, it is so goddam worth it when you finally kill that thing.

I will start this off by saying that I am a huge fan of the Metal Gear Solid franchise. The characters, the gameplay, the hilariously convoluted plots; I love them all. So imagine how amazingly excited

I was when Metal Gear Solid V was announced. Watching all of that gorgeous gameplay footage, hearing all of these badass new features that they had added to the game, and hearing all the little tidbits from the plot was enough to make me crazy, to make me crave this game with every fibre of my being. This sounded like everything that I could have ever wanted in a Metal Gear Solid game. Nothing was going to ruin this experience for me. I was going to marathon this game and I was going to love every minute of it.

And then there came the phrase that gave me pause. That phrase was, “Freedom of Infiltration.”I had to look into what exactly that meant for how the game was played. Turns out it affects everything about how the game is played. This literally means you can play the mission however you want, unlike some past Metal Gear Solid games where you could be rather confined in how you played the game. I watched a few videos (spoiler free, of course) about how a single side mission could be played in six different ways and was baffled by the results. What truly got to me about this was the fact that these were what considered the more obvious routes to take. These were options that I wouldn’t have thought of.

That’s where my fear about this game comes in. I am not concerned that this game will be bad or will somehow let me down, everything I have seen or heard makes the game sound incredible, the sort of praise that Makes Metal Gear Solid 5 seem like pinnacle of video games. What I’m afraid of is that I won’t be smart enough to play through this game while taking advantage of all the incredible things that you are now able to do. I fear that I will be playing this game in such a straightforward, simplistic, and unimaginative way that I won’t be taking full advantage of the games mechanics and systems.

Long story short, I fear that I am not smart enough to play this game the way it should be played.​Now, all of this is not to say that I am not still hilariously excited to play this game. In fact I think the total open nature of the game is one of its greatest strengths. It will force someone like me to really think about how to accomplish something; it’ll challenge me to think outside the box, to really consider what the best ways to go about things are. But it will always leave open the option to just run inside and kill everything that moves. It is this flexibility that gives the game a near infinite replay factor, and that is never a bad thing.

The Spartan ProgramAh yes, the Halo universe, one of the more interesting science fiction settings that I have come across in all of my adventures in nerd-dom. This one had it all: far flung worlds at the edge of the galaxy, new and interesting technologies, fleets of ships exploring space and discovering new and exciting places, the alien races hell-bent on wiping out humanity, and of course, the super-soldiers. No one who has had any form of involvement with the Halo franchise will ever forget the main character and mascot of the series, Master Chief Petty Officer John 117. Throughout the games we witness the Master Chief perform incredible feats and general moments of ass-kickery as he battles the alien Covenant. And it was all so glorious, watching this genetically engineered badass fight the alien menace and win.

During the games I had little knowledge of who the Chief really was or why he was genetically engineered in the first place. I just knew that he was a super-soldier and that he was kicking Covenant ass. And for a while that was all I needed to know. He was the savior of mankind and that was good enough. We knew that the Chief was part of something called the Spartan program, but little else. We knew the Spartan program was the super-soldier project, but didn’t know what exactly that entailed. But then came the time where a friend of mine introduced me to the book Fall of Reach. That’s when things got interesting for me. That’s when I learned what the Spartan program was and what it did. However, it took many more years for the true horror of the program to really hit me. From here on there will be spoilers regarding the books Fall of Reach, Ghosts of Onyx, as well as those in the Kilo Five trilogy and for the audio series Hunt the Truth. You have been warned.

In the book Fall of Reach we learn the origins of the Spartan program, more specifically, the Spartan II program. I’ll admit that the full weight of the actions described didn’t fully hit me until many years after I had read the book. In fact it wasn’t until I had read Glasslands, the first book in the Kilo Five trilogy that I began to understand. Early in Fall of Reach we follow Dr. Catherine Halsey as she is evaluating potential candidates for the program. What I had not known at the time of my first play through the original Halo was that the candidates were children. The people running the Spartan II program were scouring Human worlds for children no older than six years old. At first I didn’t think too much of it. I was waiting for the Super soldier badass to come into play. Now that I stop to think about it years after the fact this one little part of the Spartan program is terrifying. We see full grown adults essentially preying on the youth of various worlds. Halsey and her companions are evaluating the kids over time to see if they are worthy of being inducted into the program. It took me far longer than it should have to realize how creepy that is. These adults know full well what is going to happen to the kids they are observing, they know they are condemning these children to a life of pain and misery. Yet all they see are statistics and test subjects. The adults are seriously contemplating ripping these kids away from their happy lives that they haven’t even had a chance to fully live yet, all in the name of a science experiment trying to create a weapon. Like I said, that aspect didn’t hit me until much later. This particular portion of Fall of Reach was being told through the perspective of Halsey and other adult figures, and while there were some mentions of the horrible nature of their actions it wasn’t given too much attention. As a result I was taken in by their logic that this was necessary. I was also waiting to see how the Chief would be worked into the equation. As a result I was somewhat blinded to the rather creepy actions taking place. On some level I acknowledged them, but they weren’t my focus.

It’s at this point that the truly horrifying part of the Spartan program comes into play. The kidnappings. This is another point of the story of the Spartans that didn’t really hit me until much later on. Halsey and the UNSC have the children selected for the program kidnapped in the middle of the night. Think about that for a moment. These children have no idea what’s going to happen, thay have been put to bed, likely by loving parents, in a place that is intimately familiar to them and should be considered safe for them. They are snatched up while they sleep to be used as weapons. That was something that was certainly never brought up in the games. The fact that the Master Chief was once a six year old that was taken while he slept adds a new wrinkle to the character. He all of a sudden becomes a more sympathetic character than he is presented as in the games. After the kidnappings comes the training. This is a different kind of terrible when compared to the kidnappings. Whereas the kidnappings are a far more intimate and invasive event, the brutal training that the prospective Spartans undergo is a blunt and destructive thing. Here the children are put through grueling drills and exercise that could boarder on torture. They are starved and beaten throughout in an attempt to fast track the process of turning them into soldiers. If you were like me you were wondering why the picked the kids at such a young age, surely older people would fare better than young kids. Again, the significance of the reason behind the choice would take time to truly hit home. It’s because children were easier to manipulate and indoctrinate to the program. At one point Dr. Halsey even states that they chose the children specifically because they are easier to indoctrinate, essentially brainwashing them. Then there are the genetic modifications that wound up killing or maiming a great number of the children. When a fan of the Halo universe stops to consider these things the Master Chief all of a sudden becomes a much more complete character than he was shown to be in the games as well as a character that deserves our sympathy. Think about the series of events for a moment. At one point John, the boy who would become the Master Chief, was sleeping in his own room, when he is snatched by people he has never met from a loving home, and is then essentially brainwashed and tortured for years on end. That thought puts a much different spin on the character than I was used to.

Now for the really disturbing part of the story, the clones used to replace the missing children. This was one of those things that I knew immediately was a horrifying topic, the audio series Hunt the Truth really brought home how terrible it was. In this case the taken children were cloned so that the copies could be put back where the kids were taken from so the parents wouldn’t suspect anything. The only issue was that the clones were rapidly grown, as a result they would die rapidly. At first I thought this was a terrible thing because the parents would be forced to watch what they thought was their child suddenly turns ill and dies with little to no reason. I only considered it from the point of view of the parents who lost their child twice, and of the original children who lost their claim to their own life. It wasn’t until I read the Kilo Five trilogy and listened to Hunt the Truth that I thought about it from a different perspective. That of the clones themselves. The main character of Hunt the Truth, Ben Giraud, brings up a very interesting take on the clones and what they were going through during all of this. I’ll freely admit that I hadn’t given the clones much thought at all before listening to this series. To me the focus was always on the parents who had lost the children, and the people who had taken them. The journals of Ben Giraud made me think about the clones, how could they possibly understand the world that they were thrust into? How were they raised? Were they told what was going to happen to them? As Giraud asks, what were their handlers like? Did they talk to the clones? Did they touch them at all? I didn’t know, none of the books really covered that aspect. But the series made me think that the clones probably would have had a miserable existence. In this sense, Halsey and the people of the UNSC were effectively ruining three sets of lives, the child that has been taken, the clone made to replace them, and the parents who lose the child. When these are all taken into account it’s hard to view someone like the Master Chief, or any of the other Spartan characters with anything other than pity. Their condition was not their choice, they were not given the option of any other type of life. They were made weapons against their will by powers far greater than they could have possibly comprehended at the time.​Now if you think that all of this was bad in regards to the Spartan II’s, wait until you think about what happened to the Spartan III’s. But that is for another time.

I will be the first person to say that I may not know what I’m doing. As I am writing the story for A little Off the Top I am learning new things about who the characters are, about the world they live in, and just how goddam crazy I want to make that world. All of this will hopefully lead me to find different ways to make the story that much better and that much more enjoyable for the people who read it, and hopefully for the artist who brings my insane ramblings to life (talking to you, Jazz).

I’m not going to lie; the idea for this comic came very early on a Saturday morning with a combination of too little sleep and too much caffeine. The man who would eventually become the artist for the series, Jazz, another artist for the company, Matt, and myself were huddled around a table, trying to suck down as much coffee and sugar as we could simply to keep ourselves from face planting onto our breakfast. At some point, I’m not sure when, the topic turned to the anime series Kill la Kill. We had all enjoyed that one, and were discussing just how insane the series was. How crazy the action was, how ludicrous the plot turned out to be, how over the top the characters were, and of course, how self-aware the show was. We all wanted to do something like that!

And then there came the fateful phrase, “Wouldn’t it be crazy if…” I can’t remember which one of us uttered those words or who it was that continued with the idea of people with magical hair that would fight for them. But it didn’t matter at that point. We were off and running on a creative adventure in our caffeine induced haze. We spent most of the time eating or walking around the block just pitching character ideas and plot points, and we were having a blast doing it. Then one of us stopped, again can’t remember who, and said “You think we should write all this down?” After the ensuing mad scramble for our phones the idea was firmly entrenched in our minds.

However, after that initial high came all the doubts. I was still relatively new to this whole writing comic’s thing. Somehow, I’d managed to get myself into what would become a long running, weekly series. How would I keep that pace? How would I keep all the story points straight? Would the characters even work? All these questions and more were spiralling through my head. That’s not to say that it was all bad. The initial conversations with Jazz about how the series would play out were a lot of fun, and a much needed confidence boost. Once we had the general idea of who the characters were, and how the world worked down, it was time to actually start writing.

This is where a few other issues came in to play. The most prominent being that I all of a sudden had much more time and space to play with as far as story telling went. I didn’t have a set page limit to tell the story. As far as I knew this was going to go on indefinitely, that meant that I could expand on certain things, like the action sequences. Now, up until this point I had never written an extended action scene, so I had little idea how to actually do it. I had ideas for how I wanted that initial scene to go, sure, but I didn’t really know how to do so in a way that was both fully fleshed out, but brief enough to allow me to move on to other elements of the story. This was the first big struggle of writing an ongoing web comic to me. The idea that I certainly had time and space to flesh out my ideas, but keeping them contained enough that they didn’t bog down the story was new to me.

Now the next problem is how long do I spend developing the characters and their stories before I move onto the next bit of action the series has to offer? Too little and no one will be invested in the characters, too much and the readers may grow bored. I am learning how to walk that fine line. I am also learning how long to spend on a certain story arc. There are many cool ideas that I want to get to in the series, the problem is that I have to set them up properly first, and I am an impatient man. I will have to try to find the right balance for all these things.​One of the things that Jazz and I say whenever we meet to discuss the story is, “there is no such thing as too crazy.” The entire point of this comic was to do something so crazy that you couldn’t help but chuckle while reading it. To go so far over the top of what was rational that it would hook you and not let you go. I think we’re on the path to doing that. I hope you stay with us because you haven’t seen anything yet!

Those who know me knew there couldn’t be any other choice for the top spot. This was the moment that defined my childhood. This is the one moment that I keep coming back too. No matter how many times I see it, this scene still makes me tingle. The scene was executed very well, from Gohan’s reluctance to fight, including the sacrifice of Android 16, up until the final transformation.

To me, this was the moment that Dragon Ball Z had been building to. This was the big payoff for the series. While there are undoubtedly several other cool and mind blowing moments throughout the series this, to me, is the most important one.

Throughout the series we got several glimpses into what Gohan was truly capable of. We always knew that Gohan was going to be something special. We all saw what he was capable of. He would occasionally snap and give villains much stronger than himself a beating. However, these moments were few and far between, and they never lasted long.Until this moment.

This was the moment that Gohan was pushed too far. This was the moment where Gohan finally stepped out of his father’s shadow. With Android 16’s sacrifice Gohan was finally able to push past his barriers and fully harness his power. We finally got to see what Gohan was truly capable of. Even if it ultimately cost Goku his life it was still so very worth it to see Gohan finally come into his own.​And that guitar riff at the end of the scene with Gohan staring at Cell with tears in his eyes…that will always give me goose bumps.